Sarah Painter - The Garden Of Magic

When Martin stepped back in from the garden, there was an expression of peace already on his face. He knew Iris gave people what they needed and, because he trusted her, that whatever she gave him would work. Iris knew that it was a circular argument, but it didn’t make it any less true. She’d made the tea with firm intention, just to be on the safe side. The belt and braces approach to magic.

Iris sent him away with the blue bottle and instructions to take three drops in his cocoa before bed, every night for a week. The man was exhausted and what he truly needed was some dream-free sleep. Iris knew no better sleep aid than one mixed from Valerian and chamomile. Especially if it was taken with some whisky as a hot toddy.

As Iris moved around the kitchen, fixing herself some soup for lunch, she wondered whether Martin had been right. Was the joy of his marriage enough to make up for the pain he now felt? The pain he would have to bear, if his parents were anything to go by, for another forty years of life. Was it truly better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

Iris had been in love once, but it was so long ago that it felt as if it had happened to a different person. She had been just a girl at the time, so in a way that was true. Her gift for giving people what they needed had saved her from a very bad marriage but, at the time, it hadn’t felt entirely as if she’d been saved. It was too long ago; she couldn’t recall the feelings of love, only remember that she’d had them. A dried-out memory, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book.

***

Across town, Bex Adams was crouching next to the peach toilet bowl in her employer’s en-suite attempting to coax a nervous pee-er. ‘Come on, sweetheart, do your wee. It’s okay.’ This was not how my life was supposed turn out. She squashed the disloyal thought, feeling guilty. She was lucky to have this job. Lucky to have any job.

Mrs Farrier’s middle child, the three-year-old blonde moppet, Carly, shook her head. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was shaking with the effort of holding herself suspended over the toilet seat.

‘It’s okay, just relax. Relax, sweetie.’ Bex could hear the strain in her own voice and wasn’t in the slightest bit surprised when Carly cracked open one eye and shook her head furiously.

‘How about a deal? If you do a wee on the loo, we can play Incy Wincy Spider.’

Carly was shaking her head before the sentence was out of Bex’s mouth. Carly was nobody’s fool. She tried again: ‘We can play the game and have ice cream.’

Nothing.

‘In a cone.’

More head shaking.

Bex pulled out all the stops. ‘With toffee sauce.’ Carly still wasn’t peeing, but she wasn’t shaking her head, either. A frown of concentration appeared across her soft baby features. Finally, she opened both eyes and looked at Bex with such an expression of anguish that it stabbed Bex straight through the heart. God only knew how she would manage if she ever had kids of her own.

‘I can’t,’ Carly whispered. ‘Need my nappy.’

Looking at the tense little girl, Bex had a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘Okay, forget about the wee. Just sit for a moment. Have a rest.’

She shuffled forward and wrapped her arms around Carly, giving her a cuddle. ‘Good try, honey. Well done. You’re such a big, brave girl.’ She felt Carly’s exhausted arms relax and the child’s body settling, very lightly, on the seat. She kissed the top of her head and held the position for a moment, her knees sore on the hard tile of the bathroom floor. ‘I know,’ Bex said, as if the idea had just occurred to her. ‘Let’s play blowing bubbles.’ She pulled back slightly and made sure Carly was watching. Then she mimed unscrewing the lid on a bottle of bubble mixture, dipping the wand and holding it out.

Carly’s eyes widened in understanding and she grinned. Bex blew through the imaginary wand and mimed watching the bubbles float around the bathroom.

‘My turn!’ Carly said.

‘Okay.’ Bex repeated the mime and, as Carly blew with all her might into the imaginary wand, her cheeks puffing out with the effort, Bex heard the welcome sound of liquid hitting the water in the bowl.

A crash from downstairs launched Bex from the bathroom. Her legs had cramped from being crouched on the floor for so long, so she half hobbled down the stairs calling to her older charge, Tarquin. ‘Are you okay?’

Silence.

No screams of pain. That was good. She rounded the corner from the living room to the family-size kitchen diner. Her ironing basket, which had previously been piled neatly with freshly pressed clothes, was upside down on top of the island. The clothes were heaped on the tiled floor, a pair of Mr Farrier’s navy chinos was draped over the extractor fan and a bed sheet was stretched between the stools from the breakfast bar. Bex frowned at the mess, looking for the cause of the noise. It had been a crashing, a breaking –

The phone rang shrilly and she snatched it up. ‘Yes?’

‘Rebecca.’ The cold tones of Mrs Farrier stopped Bex in her tracks. ‘I just wanted to check that you had remembered to get extra chicken for tonight.’

Bex wanted to say ‘Of course I bloody have’, as she hadn’t – not once – forgotten an instruction from Mrs Farrier or, as far as she was aware, let her down in any way, shape or form. It didn’t stop Mrs Farrier from treating her like an incompetent skivvy, however. Instead she followed her own personal mantra of ‘kill them with kindness’ and made her voice especially warm and bright: ‘It’s all in hand.’

‘Good.’ The tone was incrementally warmer and Bex chalked it up as a success. She was bloody likeable. She would wear down Mrs Farrier, break through that chilly exterior. Eventually.

Mrs Farrier ran through the rest of the day’s tasks, as if they weren’t already written on the daily sheet attached to the fridge, and she hadn’t already gone through them verbally the night before. Bex took the opportunity to sidle past the clothing mountain and peer into the utility room. It was empty.

Bex stalked into the big larder cupboard, throwing open the door to surprise the pint-sized fugitive. It was empty. ‘You can run, but you cannot escape,’ she muttered.

‘Pardon?’

‘Sorry, Mrs Farrier. If that’s everything, I’d better –’

‘Don’t forget Mr Farrier’s cufflinks. He wants the gold ones for tonight.’

‘Right-o,’ Bex said. She had spotted a pair of Converse boots sticking out from behind the open kitchen door. ‘Have a good day!’

Bex ended the call and crept forward, planting hands on ankles and yelling ‘Tarquin!’ The boy’s legs convulsed as if electrocuted and the rest of him appeared, looking somewhat pinker than usual.

‘Gotcha.’

Bex had corralled the laundry back to the basket, given Tarquin a firm talking to, and removed most of the pen marks from the wall. There were still a couple of red lines, though, and Mrs Farrier was going to hit the roof. Bex knew it wouldn’t be Tarquin who bore the brunt. The kids were still sweet, the rebellions small and appropriately childlike, but it couldn’t last for ever. Tarc was twelve next birthday and already the same height as her. Things couldn’t go on with this lack of control. It wasn’t in anyone’s best interests, as Bex knew better than anyone. Her mum and dad had been too busy falling out of love to take a firm line with Bex when she had been Tarquin’s age, and look how that had turned out.

She knew she ought to speak to the Farriers about Tarc, but that would involve a sit-down meeting with both Mr and Mrs Farrier and Bex preferred to avoid Mr Farrier as much as possible. Especially after –

‘Ex?’ Carly was in the doorway, naked from the waist down. ‘Had an accident.’